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February 17, 2006
Bob Dylan ramblings #1
Joanna: Soooo....a little on my new found obsession with Bob Dylan. I just discovered him about two years ago, thanks to Tim. It's hard to believe that I never came in serious contact with his music before then, since I've always liked folk-song/singer-songwriter kinds of music, Simon & Garfunkel, Peter, Paul & Mary, etc.
There's the perennial Dylan dilemma: how can he sing so "badly" at times, and yet communicate so powerfully? Last year, I played his "Blowin' in the Wind" for the music appreciation class I TA for: his version of it, and a video clip of Peter, Paul and Mary singing it at the 1963 Civil Rights Rally in Washington, D.C. This opened up incredible discussions, of the symbolism of the song as read through the events of its time, and of the timbre of the song itself. Year after year, I'm amazed at the articulate insights that my students have about music, even without any kind of musical training. Basically, though some students thought that the harmonies of P, P & M brought a new dimension to the song, they thought that their version was too polished. They felt that the rawness of Dylan's voice gave an immediacy, poignancy, and passion to the song that was lacking in the other version. Basically, that his "bad" singing was what gave the song its power.
In the Silver Eye exhibit we went to yesterday, John Cohen had a quote saying that Dylan's is somewhere in between a folk ballad and Symbolist poetry.
My favorite Dylan song at the moment is Chimes of Freedom Flashing
The images are brilliant, especially his mixture of sound and visual images—Chimes ring all the time in songs, but how many times do you see chimes flash? I want to describe it more (lightning, thunder, storm, suffering), but I know I can’t say it as well as he does. Here, instead of Symbolist poetry, the poetry reminds me of a drawn out, complex metaphysical conceit.
My take is that he's an orator who uses every tool--melody, harmony, instruments, even at times flat, raw, scratchy, scraping notes--to shape his poetry. Especially in his "folk" style. I have a theory about his electric stuff that I'm still working out--at times, I think he deliberately sings wretchedly in some of those songs as a shield to protect himself from the hordes of people adulating him.
In the Silver Eye exhibit we went to yesterday, John Cohen had a quote saying that Dylan's is somewhere in between a folk ballad and Symbolist poetry.
My favorite Dylan song at the moment is Chimes of Freedom Flashing
The images are brilliant, especially his mixture of sound and visual images—Chimes ring all the time in songs, but how many times do you see chimes flash? I want to describe it more (lightning, thunder, storm, suffering), but I know I can’t say it as well as he does. Here, instead of Symbolist poetry, the poetry reminds me of a drawn out, complex metaphysical conceit.
music stuff | By Tim and Jo | 10:00 AM
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